Hartford TheaterWorks Turns To Membership Model
Actors Stephen Elrod and Jessica Jain perform in the play “The Who and The What” at TheaterWorks in Hartford. The play streamed online to a virtual audience.
For more than a half-century, the subscription model was the classic business framework for regional theaters, giving nonprofit institutions the security of cash-in-advance funds and an assured audience base to start each season.
Though buying habits have shifted over the years with audiences increasingly favoring ticket purchases for individual shows, the subscription model has remained theaters’ financial foundation — but one with diminishing fiscal security.
Now the pandemic, and resulting ban on indoor shows, is causing some theaters to look at another business model to keep earned income flowing for ad-hoc and virtual programming.
TheaterWorks Hartford has adopted — at least for now — a membership model that allows fans to purchase monthly or year-long memberships, for either individuals or entire households, that offer access to content presented in any form: online, outdoors or eventually back inside its newly-renovated, 188-seat basement theater in downtown Hartford on Pearl Street.
Pre-pandemic, the 36-year-old producing theater had more than 5,000 subscribers for its five-show season, one of the highest subscription counts among the state’s regional performance venues.
“Membership is something we talked about a lot before the pandemic,” says Freddie McInerney, TheaterWorks’ director of marketing and communications, “but we could never reconcile it with the ease of our subscription model.”
While some theaters have produced little online work since last spring, TheaterWorks has debuted a steady stream of content to keep audiences engaged and entertained. That has included virtual concerts, readings, watch parties and even an at-home series, “Get Sauced With Rob,” which features the theater’s producing artistic director, Rob Ruggiero, as he prepares pasta sauce in his kitchen while informally chatting with theater pals.
Those virtual offerings resulted in more than 90% of the theater’s 2019-2020 subscribers waiving refunds for the three shows that were canceled last spring.